That's a pretty terrible act of customer non-service.

I've used these private white-glove services for visas many times. (They obviously do passports too, but I've never been abroad at the point in time I needed a renewal.) Their entire value-add, and the reason their fees are often well more than the consular fees, is because they triple-check everything and make sure your papers are in order both ways. The current company I use, which is one of the big ones many here have heard of, would almost certainly *not* send me back my passport with an obvious typo in it.

They've definitely saved me time and corrected *my* errors filling out visa paperwork and providing stacks of related materials. Everything handled by FedEx both ways. Having to travel to them, or even worse travel to a consulate, totally defeats the purpose of using the third party. I've used them for two Indian visas, as India is known for being one of the pickier ones about filling the forms out perfectly for a visa.

If you can switch vendors next time, I'd definitely look into that.